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[a_fell]

I.II.III.

Consciousness descends on him by inches, and with the growing light that has been edging onto his pillow comes the growing awareness that the other side of the bed is empty.

There's a terrible crick in his neck, as well; he remembers waking with a start after drifting off over his book last night, Crowley still snoring blithely on beside him, and crawling under the covers rather than waiting any longer for the demon to wake. He's slept the night through, and while he can see that it's still early morning outside, daylight has fully broken across the water.

He sits up carefully, rubbing at his neck as the crick fades. The suitcase abandoned last night is nowhere to be seen, but Crowley's watch is on top of the dresser, and a few of his own handkerchiefs are folded in a neat pile nearby. Someone's unpacked, then. He looks again at the sky out the window, frowning; it can't be more than nine yet.

He stands carefully, considers making the bed, and just as quickly discards the idea. He'll do it when he's getting dressed, perhaps.

He wanders into the kitchen with a vague idea of making some tea, discovers a bowl of apples on the counter, and glances out the window for the culprit. There on the veranda, hair lifting gently in the breeze, is Crowley.

Comments

[aj_crawley]

In theory, he's reading. In actual fact, Crowley is Lounging, slouching in a rickety cane chair with more than enough skill and determination to warrant the capital letter. One of Aziraphael's books is lying on his stomach, face down, and his feet are propped up on the equally rickety cane table near the ravaged cores of a pair of apples.

Yesterday (and the day before, and the day before that) he'd been worn, sluggish, a rather greyer shade of pale than usual.

The difference is striking.

The creak of the screen door alerts him; when he sees Aziraphael stick his head out, Crowley's grin is easy, and angular, and bright.

[a-fell.livejournal.com]

"Aha," he says mildly. He can't help but return the smile. "The mystery of the apple delivery is solved."

He's still in his flannel pyjamas, but it's already warm enough out that it's not the least bit surprising that he steps casually out the door.

"One of mine?" he asks, leaning down to look at the title of the book, and using the excuse (flimsy at best) to plant a kiss on Crowley's head.

"Good morning, my dear," he says, straightening up.

[aj_crawley]

"Found it in your suitcase," Crowley says blithely. "That's what you get for sleeping in."

[a-fell.livejournal.com]

"Sleeping in?" he exclaims in (mostly) mock outrage. "Honestly, I sit up waiting for you half the night, I'm up before you'd normally even turn over in your sleep and you-- what are you doing awake at this hour, anyhow?"

His outraged look turns calculated.

"Finally had enough sleep, have you?"

[aj_crawley]

"Yep," Crowley replies, grinning out at the ocean. "Woke up feeling like the Energiser Bunny, and... did things, 'til there was enough sun to sit out."

'Things', of course, largely consisting of first unpacking, then making the flight into town to raid a morning market for breakfast.

(He'd also woken up hungry - voraciously, ravenously hungry: something so very rare that it had taken him a minute merely to identify the sensation.)

[a-fell.livejournal.com]

Aziraphael may not know what the Energiser Bunny is, but the general idea is clear enough.

"What sort of things?" he asks, oddly contemplative.

[aj_crawley]

"Unpacked. Got food."



"Tried to wake you up once or twice, but figured you probably needed the rest."

[a-fell.livejournal.com]

"Sleep is not strictly required, of course," he points out, glaring a bit. "Still, after you fell asleep mid-er. Conversation. Twice." He pauses for emphasis.

"I may revise my opinion on the matter."

[aj_crawley]

"Well," Crowley says, waving a languid hand, "maybe if your, er, conversation had been more riveting, I wouldn't have drifted off."

[a-fell.livejournal.com]

Aziraphael makes a strangled noise of outrage.

"It might have been, if we had ever got that far in our conversation," he says icily.

[aj_crawley]

Crowley stretches comfortably in his chair, careful not to dislodge Aziraphael's book, and turns a few degrees towards the sun, which has inched a little higher in the sky.

"If you need to talk," he replies, with immense gravity, "I'm listening."

[a-fell.livejournal.com]

He very nearly curses, if only to himself. Crowley would stretch at a time like this.

He eyes the rickety chair.

"I don't think that chair would support the sort of conversation I had in mind," he admits.

[aj_crawley]

"Surely that'd depend on the subject under discussion."

(His tone is one of supreme nonchalance, but it's given the lie; there's a prickle of goosebumps along Crowley's forearms, there and gone, that can't be blamed on the breeze.)

[a-fell.livejournal.com]

There's a drawn-out pause while some sort of internal debate rages.

"Please don't force me to make a terrible pun about 'weighty matters,'" he says at last. "You'd only be hurting yourself."

[aj_crawley]

"Actually," Crowley says, removing the stolen paperback from his stomach to the tabletop, and swinging his feet down so as to twist and look up at Aziraphael without overbalancing. "Now that you mention it, there's something I've been meaning to bring up."

...Word choice.

Oh well. If Aziraphael notices, he'll probably think Crowley did it on purpose.

[a-fell.livejournal.com]

"Is there?" he asks, eyeing the buttons on Crowley's shirt. It may be that he's counting them.


...No reason.

[aj_crawley]

"Yeah," he says - with a certainty that seems rather strange when, afterwards, Crowley falls silent.




He reaches out to pick at the hem of Aziraphael's pyjama top.

[a-fell.livejournal.com]

"Mmm," he says thoughtfully, sifting his hand lightly through Crowley's hair.

"Something important?"

[aj_crawley]

For a few moments, Crowley (brow furrowed) seems to find much of interest in the balls of fluff on Aziraphael's shirt; in the faded boards beneath their feet; in the fraying rope binding the frame of his chair.



"This," he elucidates finally.

[a-fell.livejournal.com]

"This," he echoes. Crowley's hand on his pyjama top is tickling his belly as the cloth brushes gently against him; it's very distracting.

"You've been meaning to bring 'this' up?"

Some confusion might be slightly more apparent if his focus had not shifted to tracing the shell of Crowley's ear; as it is, he only looks vaguely distracted.

[aj_crawley]

"No," Crowley says, annoyed. "Well, yes. What I mean is."

He seems to forget for a second or two, on account of, on account of his ear, gosh that's nice.

- He stands up, capturing Aziraphael's hand in his own as a further preventative measure.

(His skin is warm - deeply, fiercely warm, like midday sand, and flagstones in the sun.)

"This," Crowley says again, a gesture with his free hand sketching out his meaning: the beach, and the sky, and the shining sea, and the loving, yellow sun. "I'm."


"Thanks," he says. "Thank you."

[a-fell.livejournal.com]

"Oh," Aziraphael says, suddenly beaming. And since Crowley is so conveniently close, he leans in to just brush his lips against Crowley's; just light enough that he can be fairly certain he'll be able to lean away again afterwards.

"You're very welcome, my dear," he says, his free hand sliding up to the demon's shoulder.

[aj_crawley]

Crowley feels so awake today.

He feels so conscious, so acutely aware of everything - the tiny grains of sand between the boards beneath his feet; the feel of paper against his fingers; the smell of salt on the wind (in his hair, against his face); the tart, sweet taste of apple juice on his tongue. And the bright, wondrous lights, still dancing against the night sky, whenever he closes his eyes. He feels almost like he does after a discorporation. After dying, and coming back to life.

But this - this, the way it's hard to breathe when he doesn't even need to, the way the gentle brush of Aziraphael's lips makes him want to say stupid, irrevocable, unanswerable things, only he can't get them out, because all the room in his throat is taken up by his heart.

This. He'd feel like this anyway. Because Aziraphael didn't have any reason to do this.

He'd just thought that Crowley looked wretched.

(He'd thought of bedsheets, and central heating, and the empty spaces where post-its should have been, and the empty space in the lining of his jacket where a white feather should have been, for - so very long.)

Fiat lux.

Crowley leans in to kiss Aziraphael's smile.

[a-fell.livejournal.com]

Aziraphael's hand tightens on Crowley's without the angel fully realising; he isn't surprised, per se, but the change from a day ago is startling. There's real colour in Crowley's face, real liveliness in his eyes, in addition to the very real heat in his touch.

His hand slides over Crowley's shoulder once again and down his back, then the arm goes around his waist.

His smile only widens between kisses.

[aj_crawley]

"I really am, mm," Crowley says. "I'm very grateful."

He loves how green the palm fronds are. Sunkissed, and floating in the breeze - a vivid, living green.

It's his other hand now that toys with the hem of Aziraphael's fantastically horrible pyjama shirt. And then (a pause), he slides it underneath, fingertips just barely brushing the skin of Aziraphael's stomach.

"Extremely grateful," he leers.